


not gonna reach my telephone

by biblionerd07



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bullying, First Kiss, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 times Bitty didn't have his phone when he needed it, +1 time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not gonna reach my telephone

_i_.

 

“Well, we could have a bake sale,” Eric suggests tentatively. “I’ve baked pies for bake sales for my skating team. We could try that.”

There’s a group of fifteen of them gathered in the middle school gym—the middle school student council. They’re having a sleepover to brainstorm ideas of how to raise money for a Halloween dance. Eric doesn’t really know any of the other kids in student council very well; he doesn’t have a lot of time to do after-school activities with practice and competitions to rush off to, but he likes student council.

And there’s something about being in the school when they usually aren’t that’s fun and exciting, even if they’re going to sleep in sleeping bags on the hard floor of the basketball court and he’d left Señor Bun at home. It hadn’t been an easy decision, but a lot of the boys in his class have enough ammo to pick on him without adding a stuffed bunny.

“You really think anyone would buy enough at a bake sale to pay for the dance?” One girl asks critically.

“If we say it’s a fundraiser more people will buy stuff,” someone else points out.

“Plus, y’all have never tasted my strawberry peach pie,” Eric says proudly. “Sold fourteen of them in an hour once.”

There are considering noises around him and they go on brainstorming. Eric gets up after a little while to go to the restroom. He’s washing his hands when the door swings open and a group of football players comes in. Eric can feel his shoulders hunch defensively out of habit.

“Little Dicky!” Ricky Williams yells. Eric is his favorite target. “We want to show you something.”

“No, thank you,” Eric murmurs, his face heating up as he starts to get nervous.

“Come on, it’s really cool,” Ricky promises. Eric looks at him for a minute, but he doesn’t look malicious. Besides, his mama taught him not to hold grudges. Head spinning with the possibility that maybe they really do want to be nice to him, he smiles a little.

“Okay,” he says, throwing away his paper towel and following them out. Later, he’ll think bitterly of the way they were elbowing each other and snickering, but at the time he thinks it has to do with whatever they’re going to show him. Ricky leads him to a utility closet in a back hallway where the janitor keeps extension cords and lightbulbs and vacuum bags.

“In there?” Eric asks, a little skeptical.

“Don’t worry, it’s awesome,” Ricky assures him. Eric shrugs his assent while two of the boys open the big, heavy door. Before he can even think about what’s happening, Eric feels hands shoving him hard, and he falls into the closet, tripping further over a bucket and landing hard on his knees.

“Hey!” He protests reflexively. Really, he shouldn’t bother. It never does any good.

“Don’t pretend you’re not used to the _closet_ ,” Ricky sneers, an eyebrow cocked mockingly. And then they close the door on him, and Eric’s left sitting in the dark. He tries to scramble up, tripping over that same bucket again, and he makes himself take a deep breath.

Eric’s used to bullies. He knows they do everything for a reaction. So he won’t give them his panic, even though he can’t even see his own hand in the darkness.

“Ha, ha,” he says through the door. “Good one, y’all.”

Silence. He presses his ear to the door, but all he can hear is his own heart pounding. He fumbles around until he finds the doorknob and his stomach drops when it doesn’t turn. It’s locked from the outside. He takes a deep, shaky breath and counts to ten.

“Is anyone out there?” He yells. No response. He knows if Ricky and his dumb friends were out there he’d hear them laughing, and they wouldn’t waste the opportunity to call him names. He swallows hard and bangs his hands against the door. “Hey, someone help me!”

After a few minutes, his voice is hoarse and his hands are aching and his throat is tight with tears that want to fall. He won’t let them. They’re going to come let him out any minute, and he won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

Luckily, he finds a light switch, so he overturns a bucket and sits, elbows on his thighs and chin on his hands. How long is he going to be stuck in here? It smells like glass cleaner and the dust makes him sneeze.

Eric can’t help it—a few tears start slipping down his cheeks. He wants his mother. She’s not even going to come looking for him, because he’s supposed to be there overnight. He has no way to get anyone’s attention unless someone comes down the hallway, which no one will, probably, because the janitor’s already left for the night and none of the student council kids have any reason to come down here.

He doesn’t know why those boys hate him so much. Is figure skating so unnaturally offensive to them that they have to make his life hell for it? Eric knows what they think—they call him gay, faggot, fairy. Just because he likes skating and baking?

_But are they wrong_? A little voice in his head whispers. Eric swipes angrily at his cheeks.

“Yes, they’re wrong,” he says firmly, out loud. He can’t be. He just can’t. His dad’s a football coach, for crying out loud. What would he say if Eric was…?

A little sob wrenches its way out of his chest despite his best efforts. Even if he’s…well, if he _were_ , why does that mean they have to torment him? Who deserves to get locked in a dusty utility closet? No one, that’s who, but here he is, and no one even notices.

Eric doesn’t know how long he sits on that bucket, crying, but finally he feels completely spent. He pounds on the door and yells again for a while, but his efforts are halfhearted at best. He knows no one’s coming. He clears a spot on the dirty concrete floor and curls up into a little ball. He sure wishes he had Señor Bun now. He tucks his face into the crook of his arm and cries himself to sleep.

The door screeches open and he blinks awake, eyes gritty from crying so much. He can see sunlight streaming in through the windows in the hallway. They really left him there all night. The janitor stares at him and Eric stares back.

“What are you doing in here?” He asks. Eric blinks a few times.

“I…” He hesitates. He doesn’t want to reveal that he got locked in because the football team hates him. But Eric can tell Mr. Riviera knows anyway. He’s seen Ricky and his friends pushing Eric around before, and he always intervenes when he sees it. Eric baked him two apple pies at Christmas as a thanks. He looks sad and Eric has to focus on standing up, stretching his stiff legs.

“What time is it?” He asks, voice coming out a little reedier than he’d hoped.

“Seven am,” Mr. Riviera tells him quietly. Eric straightens his shirt. His mom will be there any minute, if she’s not there already.

“Thank you,” he says, mustering up as much dignity as he can.

“Have a good weekend, Eric,” Mr. Riviera murmurs. Eric clenches his teeth together so he won’t cry.

No one else is still in the gym, and his backpack and sleeping bag are sitting forlornly in the bleachers. Did no one wonder where he went? No one wondered if he was going to come back? He feels like crying again. He pushes open the doors and sees his mom, sitting in her car, singing along to her music, and he has to stop to take a few deep breaths before he breaks down completely. He could hold it together for Mr. Riviera, but his mama’s a whole different story.

“Hi, sugar!” She says brightly as he busies himself putting his pillow and sleeping bag and backpack in the backseat. “Did you have a fun time?”

His throat aches with unshed tears. She looks so hopeful, the way he’d felt about nine hours ago. He knows she worries about him making friends, frets over how much time he spends with her instead of with kids his own age. Her smile’s starting to slip away as she searches his face, and he can’t tell her. He dredges up a smile of his own.

“Yeah,” he lies, choking down his heartache. “It was great.”

 

_ii._

 

Eric cannot get his double axel. It’s something about the possibility of hitting the hard ice that’s blocking him, even though really he should be used to taking hard hits from the boys in the hallway, and the more trouble he has, the more frustrated he gets. But, of course, the more frustrated he gets, the more his form suffers. He has stormed in the house after practice almost every night this week, angry and tearful with defeat.

His mama’s sympathetic, of course; she knows how hard he works and she’s been to enough competitions to know his rivals are going to start passing him up if he doesn’t get with the program. She encourages him or just stays quiet.

Coach, though—that’s a problem. Technically, he should understand; an athlete with a mental block. That’s all it is. But Eric’s father somehow just doesn’t get it, and Eric’s pretty sure it’s because he doesn’t see Eric as an athlete or figure skating as a sport. Not a _real_ sport, where you chase a ball and slam another guy to the ground.

So he frowns at Eric’s outbursts and mutters about Eric being a touch dramatic. He says things like, “I’m sure you’ll get it with practice.” He doesn’t even know what _it_ is. He has no idea what a double axel is.

“That’s one of them jumps, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Coach,” Eric tries to keep his voice even. “It’s one of the jumps. And I _have_ to get it down if I’m going to keep competing. I have to have it to get to the next level.”

Coach grunts. “Well,” he says, and Eric can tell from his tone what he’s about to say and braces himself so he won’t scream in annoyance. “Giterdone.”

“Mm-hmm,” Eric mumbles, shoveling peas into his mouth to have a reason for grinding his teeth.

_Visualize_ , Katya is always saying. That’s what all the great athletes say to do. But Eric’s visualized himself doing countless double axels, and his feet still end up getting tangled. He stays later at practice, comes earlier on weekends, adds extra practice on Sundays. Nothing seems to help, and after nearly a month, he’s almost ready to quit.

He’s been planning to switch to hockey, anyway, if for no other reason than to get some of his critics—Coach, for one, and the guys like Coach who make up the great state of Georgia and Eric’s high school—off his back, but he’d wanted to finish this competition season. He’d wanted to go to regionals as a junior, maybe end his figure skating career on a high note, with some hardware. That pipe dream’s looking less and less likely with every bruising fall.

Eric’s alone in the rink, skating lazy figure-eights and not thinking about much of anything. His coaches left, because there’s only so many times they can give him the same critiques and advice over and over. He’s been skating long enough that he’s not going to try anything stupid and seriously hurt himself. Even his mama isn’t there, because sitting in the frosty rink for hours every single day lost its shine years ago. Eric doesn’t blame her for not sitting through practice. She comes to every competition, sews sequins onto spandex and listens to his program music for multiple hours on the drives to different rinks in different states. She doesn’t have to watch him fall on his ass twelve times in one day.

“Whatever,” he mutters to the boards around him. He gathers his speed and momentum, lifts off, and tucks his arms. One, two rotations.

And he lands it.

Eric drifts away on the ice, mouth hanging open in shock. He laughs out loud, the sound ringing around the empty ice.

“I did it!” He shrieks. “Oh goodness, no one’s even here to see it.”

He’s a little worried it was a fluke. Should he rush off the ice and leave on a positive note? What if he tries again and doesn’t make it? But he’s too much of a perfectionist to leave it like that, especially because his surprise left his landing a little sloppy. He does it again, and he lands it. So he does it again. And again.

Eric pumps his arms triumphantly. “I got it!” He yells. He’s actually a little glad no one else is there, because he sounds a bit like a lunatic, screaming and laughing at the empty ice. He glides over to his bag and roots around for his phone, because he can’t wait until he gets home to tell his mama. She’ll be ecstatic.

But his phone’s not in his bag, and he panics for a second. He’s supposed to call his mama for a ride when he’s ready to come home. He throws socks and ace wraps and leggings and granola bars around. No phone.

Eric sighs, letting the air blow his lips out. He must have left his phone in the car. He can go into the office and call his mama, but his exuberance is slightly dampened. He unlaces his skates and repacks his bag. His mama’ll still be overjoyed, no matter how long it takes for him to tell her.

 

_iii._

 

Eric doesn’t mean to ambush the mail man, honestly. It’s just that he’s waiting for an incredibly important piece of mail and maybe he’s memorized what time the mail comes. He’s sitting in the window seat, playing Angry Birds on his brand new iPhone (a graduation present from his parents, but really just his mama), when he sees the telltale blue uniform.

Eric scrambles to his feet and flies down the stairs. He skids a little on the rug in the entryway, the way he always does when he runs down the stairs too fast, and has to catch the wall before he runs into a side table.

He throws the door open and the mailman looks up in surprise. Then he grins and holds up a big envelope.

“Think it’s here, Eric,” he says. Eric runs down the driveway and across the street to the mailbox, bare feet twinging in pain that he ignores.

“Thanks, Dale,” he says breathlessly as he takes the envelope. Dale goes about his business, opening up the other boxes and stuffing mail in them, and Eric bites his lip and stares at the Samwell logo on the envelope.

He takes a deep breath and slides a finger under the seal, steeling himself one last time before pulling out the papers.

_Dear Mr. Bittle, the admissions committee at Samwell University has reviewed your application materials and is happy to extend an offer of admissions for the fall 2013 semester. Congratulations!_

Eric whoops. “I got in!” He cries.

“Congratulations,” Dale tells him with a big grin. Eric scans the rest of the paper, but it doesn’t say anything about hockey. There’s a second sheet behind the first, but all it tells him is that the coaches of the hockey team will contact him separately about the team, _most likely by email or phone._

Eric reaches to pull his phone out of his pocket, but it’s not there. He must have left it in his room in his haste to run Dale down. He huffs a little, annoyed at himself. Sure, he’ll just run back in the house and check his email, not to mention call his mama and tell her the news, but still. He wants to check _right now_.

“Thanks, Dale!” Eric calls over his shoulder as he rushes home again.

“I’m happy for you, Eric!” Dale replies, and Eric pauses long enough to wave happily before thundering back up the stairs to his room.

 

_iv._

 

Bitty’s working on editing his latest vlog, the sounds of the Haus as his background noise. It’s all the usual stuff—Ransom and Holster having a pillow fight, Jack telling Shitty to get off his bed, Shitty listing several loopholes in Jack’s rules that allow him to stay where he is, Chowder telling a story so enthusiastically his words carry up the stairs.

It’s comfortable. Bitty had been apprehensive, to say the least, about joining a team of big, rough hockey players, but he wound up with the best guys he could imagine. He feels happy, really happy, and he knows his followers will tease him about the silly smile he’s wearing in this video, but it’s true.

The rush of gratitude diminishes slightly when his door slams open without a knock, and he turns to give Shitty a pursed-lips disapproving look.

“Bits,” Shitty says dramatically. “I need you now.”

“For what?” Bitty asks cautiously. He knows that look on Shitty’s face. It always ends in something ridiculous happening and usually something getting broken.

“For backup,” Shitty tells him.

“Is this about Jack’s no-pants-no-bed rule? I ain’t getting between y’all there.”

“Noooo, Bits, this is far more important,” Shitty promises. “We’re gonna play chicken and Jack already called Lardo.”

“Uh-uh,” Bitty objects, shaking his head. “We made a rule, B. Shitty Knight. No more chicken in the house.”

“We’re going in the front yard!” Shitty says, shifty eyes telling Bitty he just tacked that on now because Bitty insisted.

“Shitty, I’m in the—”

“I need you!” Shitty cries, rushing forward and scooping Bitty up.

“Oh, sweet mercy, put me _down_!” Bitty protests as Shitty slings him over his shoulder like he weighs nothing. So much for having any dignity.

Shitty carries him down the hall and to the yard, where they play a bruising game of chicken that he and Shitty win because Shitty reaches out and tweaks one of Jack’s nipples so he lets out a screech Bitty has never heard from him before and crumples a little.

“We are victorious!” Shitty hollers, holding his arms out.

“Bittle, get down,” Jack orders ominously. Bitty obediently scrambles off Shitty’s shoulders, and Jack immediately tackles Shitty into the leaves, telling him, “Winning on a cheap shot isn’t really winning, Shitty.”

Shitty’s gasping for air between peals of laughter as Jack grinds his face into the leaves, and then he gets a leg around Jack’s arm and somehow they’re all tangled up and Jack is laughing, too, and Bitty just _needs_ a picture of it. Maybe a video.

Except he doesn’t have his phone. It’s still up in his room, sitting on his bedside table where he put it as he geared up to edit and hadn’t been able to grab when Shitty tore him out of the room. He sighs dejectedly. Lardo wordlessly pulls hers out and he knows she’ll send him the pictures, but still. It’s inconvenient.

 

_v_.

 

“It’s your birthday?” Jack asks, surprised, and Bitty’s heart plummets. Jack doesn’t have to have the same feelings he does, sure, but they’re still _friends_. Bitty swallows down the hurt and just smiles.

“Yep. I’m twenty. Not a teenager anymore!”

Jack huffs a little. “Well, you weren’t really a teenager.”

“I was nine _teen_ , Jack,” Bitty reminds him. “Teen is in the word.”

Jack rolls his eyes and holds out Bitty’s notebook. “Do you want help studying?” He asks. “I’m done with my finals.”

Bitty smiles for real this time. “Thanks, but I don’t really have time. I just wanted to look them over while I walk there.”

Now Jack looks guilty. “I should have run here.”

Bitty laughs a little. “Jack, it’s fine. I’m beyond help, really. An extra five minutes wouldn’t do much.”

Jack gives him an affronted look. “If I ran it would be an extra seven minutes.” Bitty can’t help but laugh out loud at how wounded Jack’s dignity is.

“Well, thank you, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty says. “I’m gonna head in.”

“Good luck,” Jack offers. Bitty snorts.

He leaves the final feeling like his brain is a wrung-out sponge. He doesn’t deserve this. It’s his birthday. Ransom and Holster are waiting for him. As frustrating as it is not to know what’s going on, he can’t help but feel excited. They’re doing something for him. His friends are surprising him, somehow, for his birthday.

He hopes they’re getting rid of that horrific couch.

He doesn’t like being handled, though, and he’s just about ready to stomp his foot and demand to know what’s going on. He knows it’s silly—know they have his back—but there’s a little sliver of him under the excitement and gratitude that’s worried. What if the surprise is something bad? What if he’s Little Dicky again, getting shoved in a utility closet?

“Hand over the phone, Bits,” Nursey orders. Bitty’s gasp could possibly be described as _dramatic_.

“What? My phone?”

“Come on, so I can catch your reaction,” Nursey wheedles. Bitty narrows his eyes.

“Does that mean we’re heading back to the Haus?”

“Yes!” Chowder says excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Let’s go!”

Farmer laughs fondly at him. “You have no idea how hard it’s been for him to not tell you.”

That mollifies some of Bitty’s earlier betrayed feelings. He sighs and hands his phone over to Nursey. “Be careful,” he instructs.

“Chill,” Nursey advises. Bitty should have seen that coming.

The whole team is gathered around. It’s a little weird to see everyone there when Bitty hasn’t sent out a baking announcement. They’re all smiling at him. It’s a little awkward, truth be told.

“Aren’t y’all gonna yell surprise?” Bitty asks, amused. These boys do not know how to throw a surprise party, apparently. And then he comes into the kitchen. And he sees—that’s not Betsy. That is shiny and new and _fancy_ and Bitty’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Is that…?”

Jack is standing there, camera around his neck and a smirk on his face, and Dex has his sleeves rolled up like he helped install the new thing, and everyone is crowding in to see Bitty’s reaction. He puts his hand to his mouth, overwhelmed.

“Y’all…bought me an oven?” He manages to choke out. Tears are pricking his eyes. He blinks quickly, hoping to dispel them, but it’s not going to happen.

“Happy birthday!” Lardo cries, and Bitty has to hold in a sob. He can’t believe this. He’s completely overwhelmed. Everything turns into a blur; there’s a keg, and everyone starts drinking, and somehow Bitty finds himself holding onto Jack, crying into his chest.

“He thought I forgot his birthday,” Jack tells someone, proud of his subterfuge, and it leads to another round of Bitty weeping into Jack’s unfairly-muscled pecs. Jack doesn’t seem to mind too much, which is good, because Bitty can’t seem to get himself together.

He doesn’t know what happened to his phone. He knows he got it back from Nursey, but he doesn’t know where it is now. He should find it. He should Tweet his gratitude. He should call his mother. He should do something other than _cry on Jack_.

But Jack’s arm is around him, holding him in place, and it just feels so nice. He can pretend, just for a minute, just for an afternoon, that this could be real. That he has amazing friends _and_ he gets the guy.

He does still want to Tweet, though, but that will have to wait.

 

_+1_

 

For what must be the first time in the history of mankind, Beyoncé is not helping. Bitty chickened out. He was standing there, Jack looking down at him, and he’d chickened out. And now Jack’s leaving. Jack is leaving and Shitty is leaving and nothing is going to be the same, and Bitty had chickened out and never told Jack how he feels.

Bitty tries singing along, hoping that’ll help. It doesn’t. It makes him feel even worse, because he’s butchering poor Queen B.

“Remember those walls I—” He tries. There’s no point trying to make himself stop crying. It won’t work. And besides, no one’s around to see. The Haus is empty. He sobs a little, swiping at his cheeks. He’s being ridiculous. They weren’t _anything_. They were friends, but friends move on all the time. He needs to toughen up.

Someone’s grabbing his arm. He pulls his earbuds out, startled, and finds Jack, chest heaving, graduation robe askew, hair wind-rumpled, face serious. Bitty blinks hard to get rid of any evidence of tears.

“Oh my goodness—why are—is everything alright? You’re outta breath! You could have texted—”

“Bitty.”

All his breath leaves his body. Jack doesn’t call him Bitty. He doesn’t. And then Jack’s holding onto both his arms, leaning closer, and Bitty’s heart stops beating. Jack is searching Bitty’s eyes and Bitty has no idea what he finds there, has no idea what his face is even _doing_ because it seems like Jack is going to…

And then he does. He leans forward and he presses his lips to Bitty’s and he lets one hand come up to rest on Bitty’s face. Bitty’s frozen for a second, eyes wide, before he melts into it. He’s leaning his weight against Jack, hand on that chest he’s admired for so long, and Jack’s got an arm snaked around Bitty’s waist and one cupped around the back of Bitty’s head, thumb stroking across his cheek. He pulls back for a second and Bitty can’t even open his eyes, afraid it’ll all dissolve around him if he does. Jack dips back in.

It’s only seconds, probably, but it feels like a lifetime in that moment—a lifetime of hoping and waiting and wishing, finally bringing them here. Bitty’s stomach is floating somewhere around his shoulders, probably, and he has no idea where his heart went. All of him is soaring.

“That’s, uh…that’s my phone,” Jack says. “I should…”

And how did Bitty not even notice? He’s usually hyperaware of his own phone, and Jack’s is in his jacket pocket, right there next to Bitty’s hand. But he hadn’t even heard it. Felt it. He’d thought the buzzing was just himself, floating.

“Oh,” Bitty says, still half-dazed.

“I gotta go,” Jack says, and then Bitty’s not half-dazed anymore.

“Okay,” he says, because he’s not sure what else to say. Was this a kiss, nothing more?

“I gotta go, but I’ll text you, okay?” Jack promises. The idea of Jack texting him tells Bitty what he needs to know, tells him Jack’s right there with him.

“Okay,” he echoes, helpless to find more words now. Jack’s holding onto both his hands and Bitty feels somehow completely blank. His heart is still dancing the conga, but he feels…calm, strangely.

They both move in again at the same moment, and Bitty rises up on his tiptoes. Jack cups his elbow. Bitty doesn’t want to stop kissing him, doesn’t want to stop feeling his hand on Bitty’s arm. But he pulls back, and Jack moves back, toward the door.

“I’ll text you,” he repeats, sounding almost desperate.

“Okay,” Bitty says. It is, apparently, the only word his brain can handle. Jack walks backward out of the door, still looking at Bitty with that aching look, and then he’s gone, and Bitty’s standing in the middle of Jack’s old room, Chowder’s boxes half-moved in around him.

He sinks down onto the chair, legs suddenly unsteady. His phone is still clutched in his hand, and Beyoncé is still singing her heart out about his _halo, halo, halo_. Bitty needs to check his phone, needs to see if the shuttle has sent him an updated ETA, needs to check his flight status, needs to…he doesn’t know. He doesn’t need anything else, probably for the rest of his life. Except for Jack to come back.

He sits for one second, unable to even form a coherent thought of what he _would_ tweet. He has his phone right there, but for once he doesn’t feel the urge to tweet anything, to call anyone.

Until his phone buzzes, just like Jack promised, and he’s never been happier to be holding it in his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I basically just feel really "!!!!!!!!!!!!!" about the update. So. Here we are. Witness my flailing meltdowns at [my tumblr.](http://www.biblionerd.tumblr.com)


End file.
